Nosework (5/12)

Joyce did come with an exercise for food distraction that was different than what I'd heard and have been doing.  We set the food distraction exercise inside the building for Gimme and Tucker (both trialing NW2 this Sunday - do cross your fingers for us).  Outside we set up a regular box container exercise for the other dogs (one is trialing NW1 this Saturday).

The food distraction exercise inside the building was set up with about a dozen containers, two with odor and no food distraction.  Then the room dividers were pulled across the room dividing it in half and another drill was set up on the other side that was another dozen containers that had food in most of them.

The exercise was to bring the dog into the first side (with the odor containers) and let them find both odors.  Then you move through the dividers into the other side and the dog sniffs them, but isn't permitted to "linger" too long by gently pulling them away or jiggling the leash.  After the dog is less distracted by the food distractions, then you move back through the divider and work to find the odor containers again.  Gimme was very good at this and I was sure glad we'd done all the work on it before this class.  There is no way that one exercise would have gotten her ready for the trial this weekend.

After we'd done that search twice, our third search was to do the outside boxes.  Gimme was just coming from her second inside search and was thrilled to see all the boxes.  She started searching and picked the wrong box and I called "alert".  It was actually quite a ways from the correct box, so I'm not sure why she thought it was correct, but her indication had all the features I look for, so I think it was a genuine error.  In her defense, it was a pretty strong wind and the odor box had been down no more than a minute.  I encouraged her to try some more and she did.  Then she picked another wrong box, which was actually right next to the correct one and again I called "alert".  Then she got really frustrated and started just trashing every box, one after the other, without even trying to search (not sniffing them).

After the fourth trashing in a row, I took her out of the search area saying "that's enough" to her, walked to the other side and restarted her.  Joyce expressed how happy she was to see me "finally correct her for something".  After the search where we were able to settle down on the right box, Joyce and I talked.  I explained that I only removed her from the search area because she was no longer searching as evidenced by the serial-trashing, thus she needed to be restarted.  Joyce says it would be perfectly "legal" to be presented with a bunch of boxes at any level of container search, so she thinks I should correct her by removing her from the search area any time she trashes a box (even if its the right one!).  She did admit she hadn't actually seen an all box container search for NW2 or NW3, but it could happen.  Personally, I don't think it would be fair to suddenly start correcting Gimme for trashing boxes, and certainly not the odor box, especially given that she has been allowed to trash boxes until now.

Joyce and I are clearly not on the same page.  I have explained my philosophy to her so many times, but she just doesn't get it.  I want to protect Gimme's enthusiasm and confidence in every way I can, while gently nudging her into better search habits.  Gimme enjoys any training/work and given the choice would be doing much more (darn that pesky day job of mine).  She is enthusiastic and confident... as evidenced by her ability to do a hard exterior search (at converging odor seminar) that lasted well over 7 minutes.  Most NW3 dogs won't persist that long if they don't find odor and I think I have every right to be pleased and proud of that kind of attitude.  Joyce's priority is that Gimme learns to be "efficient" and she's inclined to use corrections (a/k/a punishment) if need be.  That's just not going to happen while I'm at the helm.

I told Joyce - again - that until my nose is as good as a dog's and I know for sure what Gimme is smelling, I'm not going to correct her for a mistake.  Joyce said that Gimme has too good of a nose to be making mistakes.  Seriously!?!  Because she has a lot of innate talent, she can't make mistakes?  I find that an utterly bizarre line of thought.

So anyway, I've been pondering why Gimme got so frustrated.  I don't think that search was really too hard for her.  I also don't think that coming from the indoors exercise was too much for her.  I do think the excitement of seeing the boxes could have been a factor in her initial error, but not by itself enough to cause the frustration that led to serial-trashing.

Then it occurred to me as I reviewed it over and over and over again...  I think Gimme believes "alert" is a verbal click and when she didn't get rewarded the second time I said it, she got frustrated.  And as we know, frustration is her Achilles heel.  Up until now, she has almost always gotten her goodies right after hearing the a-word... so she has every reason to expect a treat after hearing it by her understanding.  It was never my intention that she think it was a verbal click, but logically with its usage, that's a fair conclusion on her part.  I tested that theory by saying "alert" to her awhile ago and sure enough, she whipped around with an expectant expression. 

So from all of this I see three training issues that I'll want to address (though, naturally, not until after this weekend):

1. Undo "alert" as a verbal click association.
2. Desensitize the distraction potential of a field of boxes.
3. Teach a new behavior that doesn't include trashing boxes.

This is how I propose to cover each issue:

Undo the "alert" as a verbal click association

• say "alert" frequently when not near NW practice or stuff, so it looses the association
• in practice or class use another word in place of it, such as "tree", "ball", "truck", "popsicle", picking a different word each time
• use "alert" only at trials, which will be infrequent enough that it shouldn't be a problem

Desensitize the distraction potential of a field of boxes

• when setting up container practices for myself, set up a field of boxes nearby
• first set them up on the far side of the container exercise
• later set them up closer and/or walk near them on approach to other containers
• goal is to walk through boxes on the way to search other containers
• then mix in higher and higher number of boxes with other containers

Teach a new behavior that doesn't include trashing boxes

• teach her a "perch" behavior where she puts two feet on an item
• use non-box items to start, like a bucket or stool
• transition to boxes that are unlike nosework boxes
• do the behavior on nosework boxes
• when its solid, put odor in a box and when she indicates, cue "perch"

also...

• put trashing on cue - its like the scratching for doing her nails
• set her up with situations where she can have the fun of trashing - like all the boxes that come into my life that have to be cut up into small pieces for recycle